Cute as a Kitten and Armed to the Teeth.

She's a bitter, biting cold, she is- and what great comfort I find in her. Pulling the hood back from around my face she at once flatters me with compliments and assures me one can be honest with God. I think about this; she flirts with hope and dances away under the flickering streetlights (they do this as if struggling for one last breath before dying). The tension had been tolerable under her mediation, but now it was just me and God just standing there, arms folded, refusing to speak until the little, lost and trembling lamb's lip bled.

Grievances suddenly echoed out in the street like shots being fired off and damn! if it didn't feel good. After all, he never complained, really. Right? Mostly he volunteered, rather, for whatever punishment could be doled out- chances were that he had earned it- if not for this than for some other past or future iniquity. Early on he had learned never to trust a hope; now he knew that cynicism could keep him well insulated from that bitter, biting cold she is. Inherited ideology spawned an elusive idealism, visiting the shadows to emerge as an enduring skepticism and eventually: nothing.

A half-answered prayer keeps him warm for the night; the timing was an especially nice touch and it had him smiling, but...

Whatever came in the morning, it wasn't joy.